{"id":199863,"date":"2010-01-19T13:42:12","date_gmt":"2010-01-19T18:42:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.wsj.com\/economics\/2010\/01\/19\/bernanke-invites-gao-to-audit-aig-bailout\/"},"modified":"2010-01-19T13:42:12","modified_gmt":"2010-01-19T18:42:12","slug":"bernanke-invites-gao-to-audit-aig-bailout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/199863","title":{"rendered":"Bernanke Invites GAO to Audit AIG Bailout"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a bid to soften congressional criticism, Federal Reserve<\/strong> Chairman Ben Bernanke <\/strong>on Monday invited the Government Accountability Office<\/strong> to audit the central bank’s involvement in the U.S. rescue of American International Group<\/strong> Inc.<\/p>\n

In a letter<\/a> to Acting Comptroller General Gene Dodaro<\/strong>, Bernanke said the Fed would provide “all records and personnel necessary” for the auditing arm of Congress to review the rescue.<\/p>\n

“To afford the public the most complete possible understanding of our decisions and actions in this matter, and to provide a comprehensive response to questions that have been raised by members of Congress, the Federal Reserve would welcome a full review by GAO of all aspects of our involvement in the extension of credit to AIG,” Bernanke wrote.<\/p>\n

The letter comes as the Fed faces increasing heat on Capitol Hill from its actions involving the insurer since the September 2008 bailout. A House committee plans to hold a hearing next week on AIG’s payments of more than $62 billion to trading partners — using government funds — in the months after the firm’s collapse, even though those counterparties would’ve received far less if AIG had gone bankrupt. Fed officials say they had little leverage in the matter.<\/p>\n

The invitation from Bernanke does not change existing policies about congressional reviews of the Fed. The GAO already has authority to review the central bank’s involvement in the AIG bailout, along with other company-specific rescues by the Fed and Treasury Department<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Bernanke and other Fed officials in recent months have said they welcome reviews of company-specific rescues and the financial integrity of its lending programs. But they’re fighting legislation that would broaden GAO authority to review the Fed’s monetary policy and internal deliberations about setting interest rates.<\/p>\n

The GAO released a report<\/a> last September, a year after the Fed-led rescue, suggesting it was too early to tell whether AIG could repay the government, which has provided $182 billion in support for the company.<\/p>\n

Read previous GAO reports on AIG.<\/a><\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a bid to soften congressional criticism, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Monday invited the Government Accountability Office to audit the central bank’s involvement in the U.S. rescue of American International Group Inc. In a letter to Acting Comptroller General Gene Dodaro, Bernanke said the Fed would provide “all records and personnel necessary” for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":850,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-199863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/850"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199863\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}